D&D Dad: “Storm King’s Thunder” Adventure/Campaign Report, Session 2

D&D Dad

Here’s the third of our party’s Adventure Report for the humongous Dungeons & Dragons campaign Storm King’s Thunder.

Session2_Chars

(I’m finally getting around to posting these!)

Session 2, 3/26/19:

The party is joined by the halfling rogue Halberticus Darkleaf, an old friend, in Nightstone. Hal meets them at the temple after everyone takes a short rest after the battle with the goblins and the worgs. The two soldiers from the keep are also accompanying the team, and they’re anxious to find the missing townspeople after the giant attack.

However, before they can move out of Nightstone, they hear meowing from a ruined house. Mavthos and Hal go to investigate, but their bumbling scares off the creature, which they hear skittering inside the house. Luckily, Torinn uses some monk skills to corral the creature, which turns out to be a tressym — a winged cat with a tag on its neck that says “Normanx”! Normanx and Torinn are quickly inseparable.

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D&D Dad: “Storm King’s Thunder” Adventure/Campaign Report, Session 1

michaeljasper.net

Here’s the second of our party’s Adventure Report for the humongous Dungeons & Dragons campaign Storm King’s Thunder:

Storm King's Thunder

Here’s the party (we’re already at Session 3, so everyone has leveled up from Level 1 in this image):

Session2_Chars

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D&D Dad: Prepping for a HUGE Adventure

D&D Dad, ,

Hello again. Sorry it’s been a while, but I’ve been busy prepping a new adventure that’s going to be huge — literally! It’s my first time tackling a full-size published campaign, and I chose Storm King’s Thunder, where my players are going to take on giants.

To help me, I have a huge map and all sort of resources, as you can see below:

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Wish me luck, and happy gaming!!!

NOTE: I used Vivyx Printers (Signs and Banners, Vinyl Banner, 31″ x 48″) and used this hi-res map from Mike Schley ($5), which has locations from Storm King’s Thunder. You might also prefer this map from Wizards of the Coast.

DnDDadThanks for reading! If you’re enjoying this blog, feel free to take a look at my books at UnWrecked Press and Amazon. If something I wrote here improved your gaming experience or you just want to say thanks, buy a book or two!

 

D&D Dad: Tell me more about this D&D resurgence…

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Storm King's Thunder
More about “STK” at the end of this post!

I’ve been wanting to write this article about Dungeons & Dragons since I started this blog way back in September (hey, it seems like a long time ago for me!). I’ve been reading a lot lately about the game and its somewhat shocking resurgence in the past few years–ever since the release of the Fifth Edition, or “5e” as we call it–and I thought I’d share my thoughts on why it’s gotten huge again.

I mean, even The New Yorker has written about D&D, for crying out loud! How legitimate can it get?

SIDE NOTE: I do feel like there’s still an unfortunate stigma attached to the game left over from the “satanic” scare of the ’80s. I didn’t even want to mention that, but I felt like it was the elephant in the room. Suffice to say that it was a case of parents not really knowing what their kids were up to, and then jumping to the wrong conclusions thanks to news reports and “60 Minutes” sensationalism. If you want to lean more, check out this article from Geek and Sundry.

Let’s just say that D&D has more or less moved out of the basement and into the living rooms and dining rooms of many families and friends. (Although it’s still fun to actually play the game in the basement, if you’ve got one…)

Taking over the basement pool table!

Let’s talk about all of the factors that played into this recent D&D resurgence.

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D&D Dad: What kids can learn from playing D&D

D&D Dad, , ,

I recently read an article that reinforced everything I’ve learned about playing D&D for the past year, and I had to share it with you here.

Here’s the quote that’s at the heart of this article:

For Kade Wells, the teacher who runs the club at Davis Ninth Grade School outside Houston, the answer is simple: “Playing Dungeons & Dragons makes you smarter.”

The article is titled How ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Primes Students for Interdisciplinary Learning, Including STEM, and it was published by KQED. Let’s dive into all the amazing information in this article and its research!

abcsdnd
Not directly related to the article, but the cover fits!

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D&D Dad: One-shots and Campaigns

D&D Dad, , ,

I’ve been trying to get back to playing Dungeons & Dragons with my family and friends for a while now. It feels like we play maybe once a month or so these days, what with school and extracurriculars for the kids, and busy days of work for my wife and me. We’ve kinda fallen out of the habit.

I’m hoping to get on a more regular schedule. Sometimes this game is more like a sport than a hobby. I have this need to practice so I can keep getting better!

And just this past week, I think I figured out what the problem was. We’d been playing a bunch of one-shots after finishing Lost Mine of Phandelver from the D&D Starter Set. And while we had lots of fun with those short, self-contained quests, there wasn’t anything pulling us all back to the table.

We had no urgent sense of What’s Gonna Happen Next? I wasn’t doing a good job of connecting all these one-shots into a compelling narrative.

So just this past week I started reading up on how to run… a campaign!

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D&D Dad: Dice. Those wonderful, terrible dice.

D&D Dad, , ,

LotsoDiceMaybe you cracked open your Starter Set and found those strange blue dice floating around in there with the books. Or possibly you picked up a bag of dice to get ready for your first game.

So what’s up with all these dice? We’re talking six or seven dice, all with different shapes and sizes. You might even see the name “polyhedral” used for theme.

Let’s do a deep dive about dice, shall we? Soon you’ll know the difference between a d4, a d12, and a d20. Let’s get rolling!

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D&D Dad: What’s behind that DM screen, anyway?

D&D Dad, , ,

This was a somewhat crazy week, so I ran out of time to write up a blog about my topic of the week: the DM screen.

So instead, I made a short video to show you how we set up our gaming table for Dungeons & Dragons, with an emphasis on what’s behind the secret screen!

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D&D Dad: Your first time playing (as a Dungeon Master)

D&D Dad, , ,

So you’ve bravely volunteered to be the Dungeon Master for your group of players. Congratulations! Let’s get you ready for running your first-ever game of Dungeons & Dragons.

SPOILER ALERT: You’re going to have fun. You’ll be exhausted at the end of the gaming session, but you’ll have a blast.

In this article, I’ll talk about some “best practices” for preparing for your game, what to do right before the game starts, how to run the game, and what to do after the game is over. The D&D Dad has you covered, first-time DMs.

And just remember, you’ll only be a brand-new DM once. After that, you’re a veteran.

DungeonMasterOldSchool
The old school Dungeon Master

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